A dinosaur in a fast-changing environment
- exploring employees’ adaptivity to task-oriented change
Master’s Thesis 30 credits
Department of Business Studies Uppsala University
Spring Semester of 2019
Date of Submission: 2019-05-29
Christofer Cunningham Karin Lindén
Supervisor: Henrik Dellestrand
Acknowledgements
We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who have contributed to our study and made this writing to a fun and educative journey.
Big thanks to the Case Company for your grateful support and access to invaluable data.
A thank you to the respondents who have put in both energy and time by participating in the interviews. The respondents’ openness and interest in the filed of our study surely was an extra boost for us in this process.
Thank you to our supervisor Henrik Dellestrand for the support throughout the whole study. His critical view has helped us creating something that we are proud of. In addition we want to thank everyone who has read our thesis and given valuable feedback.
Christofer Cunningham Karin Lindén
Abstract
In a fast-changing environment, companies need to be flexible to change. Task-oriented change, e.g. change working tools, are in risk of becoming obsolete before employees have adapted to them. The purpose of this study was to explore what and how underlying dynamics influence employees’ perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change in fast-changing environments. A single-case study was conducted with a company within the Swedish FMCG- industry. 15 semi-structured interviews with 800 interview quotes were analysed into four aggregated dimensions; Commitment to change, Competence, Relationships and Psychological conditions and three additional emerging themes; Reflection, Time and workload and Change characteristics influencing employees’ perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change.
Competence was perceived as the most important dimension together with its construct of Understanding reason and Understanding effects of change. In addition, Stress as a construct of the dimension psychological condition was found to not be influencing the employees’
adaptivity to task-oriented change as much as suggested by previous research on organizational change. Constructs of underlying dynamics was also found to interrelate with each other within the same dimension and others across dimensions.
Key words: Task-oriented change, Adaptivity to change, FMCG-industry, Commitment to change,
Competence, Relationship, Psychological condition
Contents
1. Introduction ... 3
2. Organizational change at the individual level... 8
2.1 Adaptiveness to organizational change at the individual level ... 10
2.1.1 Commitment to change ... 10
2.1.2 Individual competencies during change ... 13
2.1.3 Psychological condition during change ... 14
2.1.4 Relationships during change ... 15
2.2 Synthesising dynamics of task-oriented changes in a fast-changing environment ... 17
3. Method ... 20
3.1 Research context and method ... 20
3.2 Setting ... 20
3.3 Actor... 21
3.4 Events and processes... 22
3.5 Data analysis and coding process ... 25
4. Empirical findings ... 29
4.1 Commitment to change ... 30
4.2 Competence ... 32
4.3 Relationships ... 35
4.4 Psychological Conditions ... 37
4.5 Additional emerging themes ... 39
4.6 Summary of empirical findings ... 41
5. Discussion ... 42
5.1 The varying combinations of commitment to change ... 42
5.2 The importance of understanding reasons and effects of changes ... 43
5.3 Skills and capabilities gained from experience and support ... 44
5.4 Communication trigger Trust ... 46
5.5 No time for feelings ... 46
6. Conclusions ... 48
6.1 Managerial implications ... 49
6.2 Limitations ... 49
6.3 Further research ... 50
7. References ... 51
8. Appendix ... 58
8.1 Appendix 1 ... 58
8.2 Appendix 2 ... 59
8.3 Appendix 3 ... 60
1. Introduction
“In the new world, it is not the big fish which eats the small fish, it is the fast fish which eats the slow fish” Klaus Schwab (2015), founder of World Economic Forum. With this citation, one can draw parallels to the increasingly competitive and fast-changing business landscape (e.g., Griffin et al., 2007; Hurn, 2012; Bourne, 2015). Smaller and more flexible companies are challenging the oldest multinational companies (MNCs). However, the oldest MNCs are still the market leaders (Zahra & Hayton, 2008) but can be seen as dinosaurs in fast-changing environments. For organizations to survive in these fast-changing environments, they need to be flexible in order to allow their employees to stay innovative and creative (Burnes, 2004;
Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997).
Change has become unavoidable as organizations have accepted, in theory at least, that they either must deal with change or die (Beer & Nohria, 2000). Fast-changing markets put pressure on companies to change their old business models and become more flexible in their ways of working (McKinsey, 2018). Flexible ways of working are resulting in rapidly changing technologies in organizations, which are impacting employees’ task-oriented daily work- routines. As a consequence, employees within organizations who act in these fast-changing environments need to adapt to task-oriented change faster than ever before in order to adapt to new internal processes or tools that are introduced at their workplace. Task adaptivity is argued to be a relevant work performance domain where task adaptivity reflects the degree to which employees are able to respond to these task-oriented changes (Griffin et al., 2007).
Change in organizations is a well-studied phenomenon for the past decades (Stouten et al., 2018) have identifying ways to make a meaningful and sustainable change is a challenge. One reason for this challenge is that scientific literature often lacks consensus regarding change processes (Bamford & Daniel, 2005; Pettigrew et al., 2001). As a result, change practitioners are facing a challenge relying on scientific evidence when making a change (Stouten et al., 2018). Moreover, the outcome of change is often not immediately known, making it unclear for practitioners which particular efforts that are effective and not (Kahneman & Klein, 2009).
The unknown outcome of changes makes it difficult to repeatedly make comparable change- related interventions and obtain feedback. Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) argue that the immeasurable outcome of changes has contributed to the knowledge gap about employees’
reactions to change.
However, one can argue that task-oriented changes have relatively distinctive outcomes and should be able to provide feedback and still make an impact on employees’ day-to-day routine.
Task-oriented changes are to be seen as changes of less magnitude than organizational changes since they are more distinctive task performance based. The meaning of task-oriented changes in this paper is when employees need to adapt by e.g.; ‘Start working in system A, instead of system B’ when both systems are in place or ‘Start using internal communication platform X, instead of communication platform Y’ if both platforms are available to use. Task-oriented changes, as mentioned, are something organizations need to be effective in constantly (Burnes, 2004; McKinsey, 2015; Moran & Brightman, 2001) in order to stay competitive (Burnes, 2004).
Researchers have argued from different point of view when explaining the underlying dynamics of a successful adaptation of changes in organizations. Individuals’ competence is highlighted as one factor determining an individual's ability to adapt to change (Beer et al., 1993). Competence is during change assumed to treat aspects such as knowledge of the business, analytical skills and interpersonal skills, which are necessary for a successful change.
Furthermore, communication and interaction between employees are also argued to contribute to individuals’ personal adoption of change (Battilana & Casciaro, 2012). Ford et al. (2008) introduce the perspective where change actors are the main reason why change recipients do not adapt to change. Green (2004) contradictory argues that adaptation is driven by the merits of the characteristics of adopters, rather than the relationship between change agents and change recipients. Other studies found motivational states influence employees’ adaptation to change (Caldwell et al., 2004) and personality dimensions to be related to people’s strategies for coping with change (Judge et al., 1999).
Herscovitch and Meyer (2002) introduced different initiatives on why individuals are
committed to change, based on different mindsets during a change. By analysing behaviour,
they categorized different levels on a commitment to change, which stated that some
individuals were more committed to change and therefore should perform better when a change
occurs. Accordingly, Conner and Patterson (1982) highlight that individuals’ lack of
commitment is driving force why changes fail.
Fedor et al. (2006) explored characteristics of changes, rather than the process used to implement it and found the magnitude of change to be a potentially important correlate of change commitment. The individual's’ commitment to a change can, therefore, be assumed to be dependent on the degree to which the change impacts their day-to-day routines.
In order to stay competitive, it is argued that organizations need to manage changes faster since the speed, impact and the unpredictability of changes are greater than ever before (Burnes, 2004). This environment of fast changes is argued to impact employees’ psychological condition or well-being. For instance, organizational change can be a source of considerable stress to employees but also lead to high performance (Holbeche, 2006).
Research about individuals’ adaptiveness to change tend to examine the organizational change of greater magnitude than task-oriented change at the individual level. Yet, little is also known about the differential effects of various aspects of organizational change (Fedor et al., 2006).
Since new business models can be impacting employees’ daily work-routines (McKinsey, 2018) it would be of interest for managers to know what underlying dynamics that are influencing their employees’ adaptivity to task-oriented change at their workplace. Managers could thereby stimulate those dynamics and potentially become a more efficient organization.
In the literature of adaptivity to change, the level of analysis also tends to shift (Griffin et al., 2007) between organizational level to individual level. This shift makes the underlying dynamics of adaptivity to change at different analysis-levels difficult to compare. However, this study will be focused on the individual level of adaptiveness. As mentioned, many researchers have studied changes by isolating different dimensions of adaptation, such as commitment to change (Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002), competence (Beer et al., 1993), psychological conditions (Vakola & Nikolaou, 2005) and the change actor and recipient relationship (Ford et al., 2008) when studying employees’ expectations, reactions and ability to adapt to changes.
In addition, these studies have not fully explored how different dynamics of adaptivity are
constructed and interrelated with each other when individuals are adapting to a task-oriented
change. This paper will explore the phenomenon through a lens of dimensions from the
literature of organizational change and individual adaptivity. However, since this study is of
explorative nature, what is known from previous research on organizational change will only
work as a point of departure for this study with its focus of individuals’ perceived adaptivity in the context of a fast-changing environment.
What underlying dynamics influence employees’ perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change in a fast-changing environment?
How are underlying dynamics influencing employees’ perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change in a fast-changing environment?
The aim of this paper is to explore what underlying dynamics that influence employees’
perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change in the fast-changing environment. Also, how underlying dynamics and its constructs influences employees’ perceived adaptivity will also be explored. Our study is motivated by research suggesting that up to 70 per cent of all organizational change initiatives fail (Beer & Nohria, 2000). Executives believe only a third of change interventions succeed (Stouten et al., 2018) where people fail to adapt to changes can be seen as one reason for these failures (Dekker, 2003).
Organizational change is a well-researched phenomenon (e.g., Stouten et al, 2018). However, research of individuals’ reactions to change within organizations and what underlying dynamics that are influencing their reaction connected to their adaptivity to change, are relatively unexplored (e.g., Fedor et al. 2006). Research about changes often tends to be unfocused both in terms of what sort of change activity that is studied but also what level of analysis within the organization that is studied. Therefore, this study will explore task-oriented changes and adaptation at the individual level, in other words, employees’ perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change.
As change is context dependent (Langley, 1999) and contexts differ across organizations, an
understanding of the specific context and individuals’ perception within that contexts is
important to answer the thesis’ research questions. However, since change is context-dependent
one cannot, and the aim of this study is not, to generalize the empirical findings. This study
could, however, provide findings that practitioners and researchers can facilitate when
managing or studying employee’s adaptivity to task-oriented change. The context of interest
for this study is the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industry.
To answer our research question, data will be collected from a multinational company within the Swedish FMCG-industry. The industry has a long history of generating reliable growth through mass brands. However, the model that fuelled industry success is now to be seen as outdated as the industry faces great pressure as consumer behaviours shift and the channel landscape changes. To succeed in the coming decades, FMCG-companies need to shift from their old business model and become more flexible in their way of working (McKinsey, 2018).
Since investments in new technology and business models are more important than ever for companies to maintain competitiveness, due to its general profitability problems (Arnberg, 2017), a lot of changes are therefore occurring which make this industry a good environment to study. Today’s business environment does not only demand high phased qualitative changes, but it also puts pressure on individuals to fully adapt to changes. Since task-oriented changes are increasing in the FMCG-industry this paper examines a case study at one of the industry leading FMCG-companies by exploring the underlying dynamics of individuals task adaptivity.
As the case company has requested to be anonymous for this study, it will simply be referred
to as the case company.
2. Organizational change at the individual level
Organizational change is a broad concept that includes changes of various elements of an organization such as changed structure or changing workforce (e.g. Siggelkow, 2001; Weick
& Quinn, 1999), of various magnitudes (Watzlawick et al., 1974) and various frequency (Weick & Quinn, 1999).
Organizational change takes place at different levels in organizations even though it can be difficult to define level since different organizational units are not suggested to be wholly independent or interdependent to one another (Griffin et al., 2007), but by definition includes all organizations some degree of interdependence. This interdependence suggesting that behaviours directly contributed to effectiveness at a given level (e.g., the individual level) can indirectly contribute to effectiveness at higher levels through an additive process of composition (Chan, 1998). Even though change per definition can be affecting different organizational levels, such as organization-wide level, team-level and individual level at the same time, one can focus the perspective from one level at a time. To exemplify, the whole organization can be introduced to a new vision of doing business, while at the individual level this change can take form as a task-oriented micro change such as new procedures in core tasks (Griffin et al., 2007). However, organizational change is said to be seen as complex because it differs from other domains that are discrete and repeatable and often immediately known (Stouten et al., 2018). One can though argue if this is applicable for individual task-oriented changes since Griffin et al. (2007) describe these tasks similar to “job-specific” task performance.
The magnitude of a change can be described as either a change of first-order or second-order
where the earlier is changes within an existing system where the individual is thinking within
the box and has a starting point of the existing system (Watzlawick et al., 1974). Changes of
the second-order consist of system changes, of big fundamental organizational changes. From
an individual perspective are second-order changes affecting new behaviour patterns and new
contexts. However, individual task adaptivity to factors such as the introduction of new
technology, work redesign or new processes are all often requiring individuals to adjust their
workplace behaviours (Griffin et al., 2007)
The frequency of changes can be described by how they are identified as episodic or continuous change (Weick & Quinn, 1999). Episodic change tends to occur in distinct periods during which shifts are precipitated by external events such as technology change or internal events such as a change in key personnel. The continuous change is used to group together organizational changes that tend to be ongoing, evolving, and cumulative. To separate these to different changes is not always easy, and again, it is argued that organizational change not often either is immediately known by change practitioners (Stouten et al., 2018). In other words, it can be difficult to know if the change is episodic or continuous. Weick and Quinn (1999) also suggest that change never starts because it never stops, and that change is not an on-off phenomenon. However, the authors explain that the contrast between episodic and continuous change reflects differences in the perspective of the observer. From a distance (the macro level of analysis), when observers examine the flow of events, they see what looks like repetitive action, routine, and inertia dotted with occasional episodes of revolutionary change. But a view from closer in (the micro level of analysis) suggests ongoing adaptation and adjustment. In other words, it can be argued that from an individual level (a micro level of analysis) work behaviour can be perceived as ongoing changing adaptation and adjustment rather than distinct changes as a higher level can see the on change.
Burnes (2004) states that “change has always been a feature of organizational life, though many argue that the frequency and magnitude of change are greater now than ever before”. From an individual perspective, this ever before greatness can be seen as contradictable. One can argue that the frequency of organizational change at some point hinders changes to be of continuous increasing magnitude. Scientific evidence shows that change often takes a long time to materialize, sometimes even years before the output is known (Stouten et al., 2018). Individual adaptation to new work (e.g., through the introduction of new technology) can also take a long time before applied practice stabilizes (Dekker, 2003). However, research of organizational changes of less magnitude, (e.g., involving only some units of the organization or is more task- oriented) with still high frequency seems to be poor and lacks conceptualization.
Planned organizational change (Stouten et al., 2018), organizational transition (Ashford, 1988)
and strategic change are concepts used in the organizational change literature when describing
major organizational changes. Individual adaptation to these major organizational changes is
found to be a significant state for making the change successful. Concepts for the contrary to
organization transition or planned change seems to be hard to find in the scientific literature.
As an example, Kurt Lewin’s original definition of planned change was applying to small groups change but have during time extended to include organization-wide change initiative e.g., by Beer and Nohria (2000) and Mintzberg et al. (1998) (Burnes, 2004). This has led to some confusion between planned (participative) change and the more lately used definition planned (transformational) change (Burnes, 2004).
2.1 Adaptiveness to organizational change at the individual level
Several researchers argue that the individual’s psychological capabilities, in other words, his or her behaviour, is in direct relation to the successful executions of organizational changes (Griffin et al., 2007; Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002; Müller & Kunisch, 2018; Stouten et al., 2018)
Adaptivity has concerned a great variety of theoretical schools. Adaptivity, as a performance domain, is described by Griffin et al. (2007) as the extent to which an individual adapts to changes in a working system or work roles. This behaviour or performance domain can also be described as individual task adaptivity since it regards how the individual adapts to tasks as an adjustment to new equipment, processes, or procedures in core tasks. Furthermore, the factor uncertainty has found to be a core element in studies of the link between individual performance and effective outcomes for organizations (Griffin et al., 2007). How individuals behave during uncertainty can, therefore, be of interest when trying drawing parallels to how they behave in change.
Research within the field of change presents different and similar factors that are required for successful change implementation and adaptivity (Stouten et al., 2018). Outcomes in the empirical literature of change largely focus on employee commitment to change (Herscovitch
& Meyer, 2002; Oreg et al., 2011). Other frequently used concepts in traditionally change management-models focus on relationship-related factors (Ford et al., 2008; Battilana &
Casciaro, 2012), stress-factors (Griffin et al., 2007; Ashford, 1988) and factors regarding competence (Beer et al., 1993.) These four concepts will be discussed below as factors that possibly could affect the ability of individuals adapting to change.
2.1.1 Commitment to change
Commitment to change is assumed by Meyer and Herscovitch (2002), as a force or mindset
that binds an individual to a course of action, considered essential a successful implementation
and adaptation to change. The authors are making this assumption of these mindsets as a result
of their extended research findings on how to identify different mindsets by a different commitment to an individual’s organization.
Commitment has received a great deal research attention; where commitment has been connected to important outcomes such as turnover and job performance (Becker et al., 1996;
Maertz et al., 2002, Mowday et al., 1979). Although commitment was initially intellectualized as an employee’s attachment to the values of the organization, researchers have also recognized commitment during specific activities. Commitment to a change has been found to be conceptually and empirically distinct from organizational commitment (Fedor et al., 2006; Ford et al., 2003; Herscovitch & Meyer, 2002).
Meyer and Allen (1991) conceptualized organizational commitment as a psychological state that increases the likelihood that an employee will maintain membership in an organization, by categorizing commitment in three different labels: Affective mindset (desire to remain), normative mindset (perceived obligation to remain), and continuance mindset (perceived cost of leaving). Meyer and Herscovitch (2001) argued that the three-component model should be applicable to the study of other forms of workplace commitment. Meyer and Herscovitch (2002) converted the three labels of organizational commitment, into labels of commitment to change, where they portray a commitment to change, as a force that binds an individual to a course of action considered essential a successful implementation when a change occurs. The force that binds an individual to this course of action can reflect (1) a desire to provide support for the change based on a belief in its inherent benefits (affective mindset to change), (2) a sense of obligation to provide support for the change (normative mindset to change), and (3) a recognition that there are costs associated with failure to provide support for the change (continuance mindset to change).
Research has shown that employees' normative and affective mindset to change positively affect their behaviours supporting change; however, organizations are regularly unsuccessful in motivating appropriate levels of employee commitment to change (Hill et al., 2011).
According to Neves (2008) perceived supervisor support show a positive relationship between
competence, affective and normative mindset to change. The same study showed that
supervisor competence was negatively related to continuance mindset to change.
In the examination of individual reactions to organizational change initiatives, change commitment reflects the individual's alignment with the change, intentions to support it, and a willingness to work on behalf of its successful implementation. This notion proactive behavioural intent toward the change makes commitment different from other attitudinal constructs that capture either the absence of negative attitudes, such as resistance to the change (Kotter & Schlesinger, 1979; Piderit, 2000), or positive dispositions toward a change, such as readiness for change (Armenakis et al., 1993) or openness to change (Wanberg & Banas, 2000).
Most of the change literature has fixated on the role of change implementation processes (Brockner et al., 1994; Caldwell et al., 2004) as shaping employees’ behaviours and attitudes toward change. Thus, the impact of any one change on the target person, in terms of increased workload or adaptation demands, is often ignored in studies of change (e.g., Judge et al., 1999;
Lau & Woodman, 1995). Since a direct and personal consequence of the change for affected individuals is important (Brockner & Wiesenfeld, 1996; Caldwell et al., 2004). Fedor et al.
(2006) explored aspects of the change itself, rather than the process used to implement it. The study suggested that the magnitude of change at both the job and the work-unit levels to be a potentially important correlate of change commitment. The individuals’ commitment to a change is therefore dependent on the degree to which the change impacts their day-to-day routines.
As well as the potential outcome of a change could affect the commitment, individual commitment and personalities could affect the outcome of the change. Researchers found motivational states to influence employees’ adaptation to change (Caldwell et al., 2004) and personality dimensions to be related to people’s strategies for coping with change (Judge et al., 1999). Align with the previous argumentation Beer et al. (1993) states that changes in attitudes lead to changes in individual behaviour where changes in multiple individual behaviours will result in an organizational change. By a joint diagnosis of the business problem the unit making the change are able to mobilize commitment. By, including all affected stakeholders involved in the change process at an early stage, commitment to change is more likely to be created.
According to this, change is almost like a conversion experience where people ‘get religion’
and changes in their behaviour will follow.
2.1.2 Individual competencies during change
As high level of commitment is seen to be essential for efforts, initiatives and cooperation when organizations make changes due to cost, quality and product development, competence factors such as knowledge of the business, analytical skills and interpersonal skills as necessary when making a change (Beer et al., 1990). Kotter (2012, p.133) argue that even employees who are motivated to change can lack sufficient knowledge or ability to do so. Learning is enabled by receiving sufficient support (Beer et al., 1990) and resources (Hiatt, 2006) to be able to implement change.
Research on major organizational changes have found that when an organizational change is introduced, adjustment is required, and employees must adapt by developing new skills. The more disruption a change causes, the more adjustment it requires (Ashford, 1988). In other words, one can argue that developing new skills at the individual level are enhancing the adaptivity to the major organizational changes. However, it is not clear if individuals in the context of organizational changes of less magnitude also must adapt by developing new skills.
Weick and Quinn (1999) define micro-changes as a part of continuous changes, where learning is fundamental though.
A number of researchers argue though that effective change is about learning new skills and knowledge (Ashford, 1988; Beer et al., 1990; Stouten et al., 2018) or strengthening existing skills (Weick & Quinn, 1999). As an example, it is argued that it is rare that top-management knows in advance the fine-grained details of organizational change that many units in large organizations demands. Top management is suggested to learn from innovative approaches coming from younger unit managers closer to the action (Beer et al., 1990). However, it is not clear if this is also suggesting that learning is of importance for those employees at lower levels in organizations, or for other organizational changes that not is demanded by many units, for instance, a task-oriented organization change involving a couple of individuals at the company.
Beer et al. (1990) further suggest that new competencies such as knowledge of the business as
a whole are necessary, which can be seen as contradictable to the example above about top-
management reaching out to lower-level managers. From a hierarchical perspective can top-
management be considered to possess a higher degree of knowledge of the business as a whole
than lower-level managers working in a specific unit. If this character of knowledge is needed
on an individual level regarding task-oriented changes is unknown.
Hiatt (2006), Judson (1991) and Kotter (2012) all address the need for creating awareness about the need for change to everyone the change will affect. That argumentation includes that the change initiator should also address the reason for the change, and the risk that comes with the implementation phase. Judson (1991) argues that a change actor should use a “balance sheet”
of positive and negative predicted outcomes in order to predict implications for employees and possible resistance during the change. Lau & Woodman (1995) stresses that if employees understand the reason for the change and believe that the reasons of the change is beneficial, the employees tend to have a more favourable attitude to the change.
Developing knowledge and ability related to the change emphases the learning aspects of organizational change and can be related to both understanding the vision and how to practice new behaviours the change motivates (Stouten et al., 2018). When trying to distinguish different types of knowledge, some authors use the concept of soft skill for interpersonal qualities and hard skill for technical skills (Robles, 2012). Bloodgood and Salisbury (2001) defines explicit knowledge as knowledge that is easily expressed which can be transmitted to others in a relatively straightforward manner. On the other hand, tacit knowledge is that which is difficult to articulate and express to others. How important this knowledge is for developing the ability to adapt to change is not clear and the scientific literature lacks consensus.
2.1.3 Psychological condition during change
Change is typically activated by environmental shift which, once are recognized by the organization, leads to an intentionally generated response (Porras & Silvers, 1991). Emotions and responses to organizational change can be so intensive that has been compared with individual responses to traumatic changes such as death and grief (Henderson-Loney, 1996).
Vakola and Nikolaou (2005) state that a person can experience emotional fluctuations during change processes such as anger, denial, chaos, depression, resignation, openness, readiness and re-emergence. This response is affecting the members of the organization and their work- related behaviours.
According to Elizur and Guttman (1976), attitudes toward change in general consist of a
person’s cognitions about change. Piderit (2000) have recognized employees’ responses to an
organizational change ranging from strong negative attitudes (i.e. “this change could possibly
ruin the company”) to strong positive attitudes (i.e. “this change could be essential for the
organization in order to succeed”). The change could therefore consequently be received with happiness and excitement or fear and anger while employees’ reaction to it may vary from positive intentions to support the change to negative intentions to dispute the change (Vakola
& Nikolaou, 2005).
Individuals are being forced to rethink during changes. This process can trigger emotional turbulence like stress and internal competitiveness since it is difficult to handle tensions between old loyalties and new imperatives of the change initiative (Senge et al., 1999). Since uncertainty is the most frequent psychological state resulting from changes, stress reaction evokes (Ashford, 1988). Stress is a fundamental concept that exists at most of the workplaces around the world. The British Industrial Society Survey (2001) suggested that 91 per cent of the personnel professionals stated that stress was a problem in their organization.
Since stress are related to several outcomes, such as low motivation and morale, high turnover and sick-leave, low quality products and services, low job satisfaction, poor internal communication, and low performance (Schabracq and Cooper, 2000; Murphy, 1995) one could argue that a high stress-level should be negatively correlated with the level of adaptability.
Vakola and Nikolaou (2005) confirmed a relationship between stress and individual attitudes towards organizational change but did however not isolated how stress affects the individual adaptivity to change. On the other hand, stress may not just inhibit performance. Stress can also facilitate performance, depending on the situation, since stress could be related to attributes such as “pressure to perform”.
With this said, changing ways of thinking is demanding because it stretches individuals away from their “comfort zone” (Senge, 2006). When leaving your comfort zone, and when changes occur, individuals often sense a loss of control (Fugate & Kinicki, 2008) As a change could contribute to a temporary uncertainty in a work-process, especially in a fast-paced environment, employees in fast-changing organizations will have lower control. According to this phenomenon, Ashford (1988) argues that tolerance for uncertainty is a predisposition towards change and working in a fast-changing environment.
2.1.4 Relationships during change
Changes are not physical objects that move and tend to slow down by contact with recipients,
they should rather be seen as discussions, conversations and texts (Boje, 1995; Ford, 1999). A
successful change, where the change recipient adapts to the new outcome, is therefore according to Ford et al. (2008) dependent on the quality of the agent recipient relationship.
In the literature of change, change agents are often described as undeserving sufferers of the dysfunctional and illogical reactions of change recipients (Ford et al., 2002). Adoption of change is arguably driven by the merits of the characteristics of adopters, rather than the discursive exercises of change agents (Green, 2004). Ford et al. (2008) introduce the perspective where change actors are the main reason why recipients do not adapt. Change agents tend to contribute to the occurrence of change resistance when failing to legitimize a change through a communication or misrepresenting the potential positive outcomes.
Hiatt (2006) highlights that communicating the vision of a change requires adapting different approaches depending on the audience. Not only what kind of information and what kind of tone when communicating but also, adjust when the information about the change is communicated and what communication channels are being used. According to Griffin (2004) employees appear to be more responsive to changes introduced by leaders of their own group than they are to change activities initiated by leaders of other groups. A reason for that may be that a leader within a group may know when information should be shared and how to communicate to the change recipients as Hiatt (2006) argued.
When it comes down to how much information about the change that should be communicated is, on the other hand, argued with differentiated meanings. Hiatt (2006) is stating that full transparency is suggested when making a change. Judson (1991) and Kanter et al. (2012) do not believe the complete openness may be necessary all the time. Further, when it comes to how the change actor should stress the need for change, the disputes continue. Kotter (2012) suggests that a change actor should create a feeling of urgency by setting excessive goals with the change. Hiatt (2006) do on the other hand see a danger in overselling a change by stress the urgency of the change since it can reduce the credibility of the change. According to Hiatt (2006), Kanter et al. (1992) disagree that urgency is necessary since the message of urgency might appear to “cry wolf” and therefore fail to induce the need for change.
Battilana and Casciaro (2012) show that the connections employees have with other
organization members contribute to their personal adoption of change. Results demonstrate that
employees who have a strong connection to peers are well equipped to help endorse the change,
particularly when the change does not diverge from current systems and structures. If the change does require a substantial deviation from the status quo, employees with a few quality connections with peers but lacking others are more likely to adopt change when they can go beyond their own network in seeking relevant information.
Communication, both peers to peer and recipient to agent, in these networks are essential.
Tversky and Kahneman (1973) suggest that organizational changes fail because of the abundance of available information. A person's attention is a limited cognitive resource, and people only have a limited number of hours a day where they continually are making decisions of what information to direct their attention to. In order to communicate a change or a new way of working, the leaders need their follower’s attention.
2.2 Synthesising dynamics of task-oriented changes in a fast-changing environment In order to be an effective organization, organizations need to manage interdependence and uncertainty. As the tasks in an uncertain environment become more unpredictable for employees (Griffin et al., 2007) and changes more frequently, there is expected that adaptivity, as behaviour or work performance, will make a large contribution to effectiveness. By using the lens of the literature of organizational change and the literature of the dimensions:
commitment to change, competence, relationship and psychological conditions, this paper will combine with an empirical case study investigates how these dimensions are built up by substituted constructs. The underlying dynamics of the individual adaptivity to task-oriented changes in a fast-changing environment should, therefore, be seen as: “everything that influences employees’ perceived adaptivity to task-oriented change in a fast-changing environment”.
The literature of commitment to change (Meyer & Herscovitch, 2002) focus on how different
mindsets affect the level of organizational change support, where a correlation of affective
mindset and high level of support is confirmed. However, individuals with high levels of
support to change are not the same as individual adaptivity to change. As affective mindset is
explained as a desire to provide support for the change based on a belief in its inherent benefits,
this indicates that the change recipient needs understanding the change. Beer et al. (1990) is
highlighting the importance of individual competence for a successful process and
implementation where the recipient contains a deeper knowledge of the business and the
change itself. Based on this previous research as indicators for the subtheme of task-oriented
change, one could imagine that competence as an underlying dynamic of individual adaptivity to some extent will influence affective mindset.
However, within the context of task-oriented change at the individual level in a fast-changing environment, knowledge about the business and the change itself may not be perceived as important. This reasoning is argued since Beer et al. (1990) is highlighting the importance of knowledge of the business and the change itself as drivers for successful implementations of bigger organizational changes. The indicated the lower necessity of competence as an influence for individual adaptivity to task-oriented change is motivated by arguments of Stouten et al.
(2018). They argue that organizational change is said to be complex because it differs from other domains that are discrete and repeatable and often immediately known, which may not be applicable on task-oriented changes because of their interpreted more discrete nature.
Ford et al. (2008) highlight the importance of a good relationship between change actors and change recipients and when making a change. Battilana and Casciaro (2012) argue that employees with good connections their peers contribute to their personal adoption of change.
However, what is the driving factors of these relationships? As both argumentations are stating that good connections and a good relationship are of importance, this study will explore concepts that are important for these relationships when adapting to change. In additional to relationships, when adapting to change where the change recipients need learning a new skill or a new task one could imagine these the relationship with peers and change actor could be important.
Finally, changes are connected with many different emotional reactions, which will affect the individual actions (Vakola & Nikolaou, 2005). What we do not know is, what kind of emotions that are triggered when changes in a fast-changing environment occur and how they are turned into action. Since the study is within the context of a fast-changing environment within a high performing company, the workload of the change recipients is most likely to be high.
Therefore, could a change in the workload impact their adaptability, which according to Judge et al. (1999) often are ignored in studies according to changes
By using a theoretical lens of the dimensions: commitment, competence, relationship and
psychological condition this paper will explore what constructs that are substantiated these
dimensions and how the underlying constructs are influencing the perceived adaptability to
adapt to task-oriented changes. In addition, the study will explore how these constructs interrelate with each other. To the best of our knowledge, underlying dynamics of individuals’
perceived adaptivity to change is earlier studied by few with the focus on task-oriented changes in a fast-changing environment. As illustrated in Figure 1, this study will explore the perceptions of employees’ adaptivity to task-oriented change and how their adaptivity is influenced by the underlying dynamics’ constructs.
Figure 1. Summary of theoretical dimensions as suggested influencing underling dynamics of employees’ adaptivity to task-oriented change in fast-changing environments. This paper will explore the phenomenon through a lens of dimensions
from the literature of organizational change and individual adaptivity. However, since this study is of explorative nature, what
is known from previous research on organizational change will only work as a point of departure for this study with its focus
of individuals’ perceived adaptivity in the context of a fast-changing environment.
3. Method
3.1 Research context and method
Our research question of what the underlying dynamics of employees’ adaptiveness to task- oriented change are and how employees perceive these dynamics to influence their adaptiveness to task-oriented change was initially developed after an empirically interesting phenomenon was identified. This phenomenon, at the individual level, was also theoretically unexplored in the context of an industry in a fast-changing environment. Connections to organizational change theories and adaptivity as a performance domain theory were thereafter drawn. It is emphasized that undertaking a review of the literature is an important part of any research project since it assesses relevant intellectual territory in order to specify the research question(s) which will develop knowledge of the topic (Tranfield et al., 2003). By using an inductive approach, the theory is intertwined with empirical case evidence, which has been deployed in prior inductive studies aimed at theory-building (Aguilera & Jackson, 2003;
Graebner and Eisenhardt, 2004).
Our research questions have an explorative approach with the aim of examining the underlying dynamics of employees’ adaptiveness to task-oriented change. In order to understand what these dynamics are and how they influence employees’ adaptiveness, the context is important (Pettigrew, 1997). As change is context dependent (Langley, 1999), it is important to identify themes, capture mechanism and the dynamics within a single setting. Therefore, we use a case- study research strategy (Eisenhardt, 1989) to understand the empirical case and its context. By emphasising the importance of the context of the single setting (Eisenhardt, 1989) we followed Miles and Huberman’s (1994) design approach to select (1) the setting, (2) the actors, and (3) the events and processes.
3.2 Setting
In order to stay competitive, it is argued that organizations need to manage change faster than ever before since the speed, the impact and the unpredictability of change are greater than ever before (Burnes, 2004). Therefore, in order to examine the empirical phenomena of employees’
adaptiveness to task-oriented change in a fast-changing environment, companies competing at
a high-competitive market with the assumption that these companies want to ensure
competitiveness was of interest when choosing context and case company.
The Swedish FMCG-industry is a setting with high competition among Swedish local producers and global multinational producers such as food, home- and personal care products (Konkurrensverket, 2018). The industry on a global level is driven by major actors such as Nestlé, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Coca Cola and other. The global FMCG companies with net revenues of more than $8 billion, grew only 1.5 per cent (55 % of GDP) between 2012 to 2015 (McKinsey, 2018). This global market development can be seen as a stagnating market growth where the global competition among FMCG-producers increases as a consequence.
The global companies among the other major actors are acting within the Swedish local market competing with local actors such as Orkla and Lantmännen. To win in the coming decades, companies within FMCG need to change from their old business model and become more flexible in their way of working (McKinsey, 2018). One can argue that task-oriented changes are increasing in the FMCG-industry. Therefore, this paper examines a case study at one of the branches leading producers within the FMCG-company by exploring the underlying dynamics of employees’ perceived adaptability to task-oriented change.
3.3 Actor
The actor which is the chosen case company for our study is one of the world’s biggest MNC within the FMCG-industry. The firm is almost 100 years old and has a potentially administrative heritage of different procedures and processes for how to deal with different aspects of change. The company owns 15 out of the 50 worlds’ top FMCG brands based on market penetration and consumer interactions. This is significantly more than any other FMCG company, which makes the company of interest in the highly competitive Swedish FMCG- market. The case company has an office in Stockholm where about 150 people work in the organization. As the case company has requested to be anonymous for this study, it will simply be referred to as The Case Company.
As The Case Company states that change is common, we believe The Case Company is a
suitable actor for exploring the phenomena of employees’ adaptivity to change. However, The
Case Company are actively searching for employees who are comfortable by working in a fast-
paced environment and who are adaptable to changes. Therefore, we believe that investigating
the phenomenon of employees’ adaptivity to task-oriented change in fast-changing environments is well motivated to do at the chosen Case Company.
3.4 Events and processes
Events and processes of interest pertained primarily to adaptivity to changes and underlying dynamics of adaptiveness, which provide the data for our study. Consistent with themes derived from the literature, interview topics included founding perceptions of change as a phenomenon, perceptions of adaptiveness in relation to task-oriented changes and suggested underlying dynamics from the change literature.
In our study, the point of departure is from the concepts commitment to change, competence, psychological condition and relationship from the synthesized literature of change and the literature of adaptiveness. A priori specification of concepts can help to shape the initial design of theory- building research, as it permits researchers to measure constructs more accurately.
According to Eisenhardt (1989) concepts that are proven important as the study progresses, researchers have a firmer empirical grounding for the emergent theory. For example, in a study of strategic decision making in top management teams, Bourgeois and Eisenhardt (1988) identified several potentially important concepts (e.g., conflict power) from the literature on decision making, which during their study explicitly was measured in the interview protocol.
When exploring a phenomenon with a broad research question, such as this thesis provides, we are permitted to specify the kind of organization to be approached, and, once there, the kind of data to be gathered (Eisenhardt, 1989). At the case company, change is a common phenomenon since the employees are aware they are working in a fast-changing environment. There exists a lot of research about change but not in regard to how employees adapt to change in a working system or role, as Griffin et al., (2007) and we define task-oriented adaptivity. We use Griffin et al.’s (2007) definition of individual task-adaptivity ‘the extent to an individual adapts to change in a working system or role. Interviews are used in the study since they may uncover narratives of events and the meaning that actors have attributed to them (Czarniawska, 2004).
Selection of respondents
A total of 15 semi-structured interviews was conducted during three field visits at the case
company’s headquarter in Stockholm in April 2019. Nielsen and Landauer (1993) created a
mathematical model based on the results of six different projects and demonstrated that six participants can uncover 80 per cent of the major usability problems within a system. Further, they argue that when more than twelve participants are interviewed the diagnostic number tends to level off at around 90 per cent. In addition, the number of 15 respondents also allowed the study to find patterns by cross-compare the results of the interviews, see table 2. This paper explored the phenomena of individual task-oriented adaptivity by using the lens of four different dimensions, but with an openness to explore other driving underlying dynamics. Since the interviews were semi-structured, the open-ended questions made it possible for the interview to not treat the dimensions from our theoretical lens with a given focus. With 15 interviews one can draw patterns how the respondents chose to talk and discuss the questions.
In order to achieve triangulation (Eisenhardt, 1989), interviews were conducted with employees at different hierarchical levels (executives, managers and subordinates), see table 1.
The respondents are also working in different departments and teams, which was preferable for us in order to cover the whole context of the company. Within this study, the respondents are working in departments of Marketing, Sales, Finance, Human Resources, Supply Chain, R&D, Business Transformation, and People Data Centre. The variation of respondents from different departments and teams also reduces the risk of the respondents highlighting the same experiences which could give the study a misleading result. However, all of the respondents are to some extent facing task-oriented changes in their professional work-life. All of the respondents are working a lot with digital platforms and systems and should, therefore, have easier relating to this kind of changes.
Also, we aimed to reach respondents with a wide variation in employment time at the company, since workplace experience could theoretically affect the adaptivity. By choosing a heterogeneous group of individuals, the study would at least not be limited in finding such data.
Before the interviews we sent out an invitation, see Appendix 1, we also informed what type of
changes the respondents to have in mind when discussing adaptability. Since change is such a
broad term, the context-setting invitation made the interviewees talking about task-oriented
changes. Before the interviews, we asked if we were allowed to record the conversation and all
of the respondents confirmed. The interviewees were also promised anonymity, which can
make respondents more willing to answer questions honestly. Each interview lasted
approximately for thirty minutes and yielded in a total of 93 single-spaced transcribed sheets.
For the interviews, a guide was used to consistently capture certain broad themes, see Appendix 2.
Before we held the interviews, the interview questions were controlled by a third party. After the control, we made the questions more open-ended to mitigate leading questions. We also made two extra questions to each question, to be ready to have another formulation of the initial question, if the interviewee did not understand the question. This made it easier for us to rephrase it during the interview. The fourth question (“What do you believe is important for you to be able to adapt to change?”) turned out to be a key question, where many respondents had interesting discussions. We tried to ask that question in an earlier stage in interview 3 but found out that the respondent was not yet in “the zone of change” which made the answer not as thorough as in the previous interviews. After interview 3 we then had the intention to ask question four later in the interview, so they were able to talk a bit about change before answering this question.
Table 1. Interviews and respondents background Interview Date for
interview
Function at the company Time within the
company
Gender of resp.
Place of birth of resp.
Length of the interview
1. 19-04-04 Supply Chain Manager 3 Years Male Germany 25 min
2. 19-04-04 Marketing Analyst Subordinate 5 years Female Sweden 30 min 3. 19-04-04 Marketing & Sales Trainee 7 Months Female Sweden 30 min
4. 19-04-04 Brand Manager 13 Years Female Sweden 30 min
5. 19-04-05 HR Trainee 9 Months Female Sweden 30 min
6. 19-04-05 Marketing Executive Manager 18 Years Female Sweden 25 min
7. 19-04-05 Marketing Manager 4 Years Male Sweden 25 min
8. 19-04-05 Key Account Manager 2 Years Female Sweden 35 min
9. 19-04-05 Sales Category Manager 5 Years Male Sweden 40 min
10. 19-04-09 Finance Manager 4 Years Female France 30 min
11. 19-04-09 Business Transformation Manager 9 Years Female Netherlands 30 min
12. 19-04-09 HR subordinate 1 Year Female Sweden 35 min
13. 19-04-09 Supply Chain Manager 5 Years Male Greece 40 min
14. 19-04-09 Data Analyst Subordinate 1 Year Male Sweden 30 min
15. 19-04-09 R&D Subordinate 4 Years Female Sweden 35 min
3.5 Data analysis and coding process
Our research question has an explorative nature with the purpose of understanding an empirical phenomenon. Therefore, we used Miles and Huberman’s (1994) three elements for the process of analysing qualitative data (data reduction, data display and conclusion-drawing of data).
This is followed by other researchers that also designed case studies similar to our study since they have in common to have inductive approaches (e.g., Prashantham & Dhanaraj, 2010;
Eisenhardt, 1989). Data were reduced and structured by a content analysis (Graneheim &
Lundman, 2004), see Appendix 3, followed by a coding scheme, see figure 2, do display aggregated dimensions to be analysed line with Gioia et al. (2013). The distribution of quotes (first-order concepts) was also analysed and displayed in order to get a sense of which subtheme that was most often mentioned or identified, see table 2.
Our data consists of transcriptions of 15 interviews and in total a number of 93 pages of single- spaced font size 12 Times New Roman. In this state, it is common that the data feel unstructured. The first step was, therefore, to get familiar with our data and begin a within-case analysis (Eisenhardt, 1989). There is no standard format for such analysis, but the overall idea is to generate insight into the data by reducing it and structure it in a meaningful way (Miles &
Huberman, 1984; Eisenhardt, 1989). In multiple case studies, it is common to start analysing each case by within-case analysis before making a cross-case analysis (Eisenhardt, 1989).
Since we define our study as a single-case study (Yin, 2009), the within-case analysis will cover the whole data analysis. However, we wanted to mitigate the risk of interpreting all quotes together as one mass taken from their context. Therefore, we structured the data by making a content analysis (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004) separately for every interview to some extent keep the context. This does not infer that we intended to compare different respondent by each other, we have analysed our data as one mass.
First, we made one copy of the interview transcripts in order for us to do the content analysis
individually. This enabled us to analyse the transcripts inductively without being influenced by
the other author's personal interpretation of the transcript. By doing this, we also made it
possible to later measure the inter-reliability (Cohen et al., 1972; Tyllström, 2013) of our
interpretation of the material, see table 2.
Individual content analysis:
interpretation of first-order concept and theoretical dimensions
Since the individually content analysis was the foundation for the categorization in first- and second-order coding scheme followed by Gioia et al. (2013) methodology, we decided to follow some rules when working separately to ensure we followed a similar process, a one by Graneheim and Lundman (2004). This was to inductively condense interview quotes that were connected to our research question as a data reduction tool (Mile & Huberman, 1994). This means that we read the transcript line-by-line with our research question top of mind. For every answer or phrase connected to our research question, we made a condensed quote (first-order concept) that contained fewer words with the same meaning as the quote. The quote was then also categorized inductively but the choice of theme was decided together beforehand to fit one of the keywords from our literature review if possible. One could say we used our organizational change- and individual adaptivity lens to look for theory-based themes.
Whenever a first-order concept was identified and interpreted to not fit one of the already known dimensions made by our theoretical lens, it was given an additional dimension labelled other. The data reduction analysis consequently reduced the data by a cyclical approach moving back and forth between theory and the empirical data to finally start to theorize the empirical concepts aggregated dimensions, see Appendix 3. Our cyclical approach moving between empirical key concepts and key concepts from the theoretical literature review might be viewed as transitioning from inductive to a form of abductive research (Gioia et al., 2013; Alvesson &
Kärreman, 2007).
Second-order coding: agreement of first-order concepts and its theoretical dimensions
When we both finished our individual 15 content analysis, we started to compare each other's
analysis to see if we had found similar or different interpretations of the transcripts. Author 1
read the content analysis made of interview no. 1-7 and Author 2 read the content analysis for
an interview no. 8-15. To exemplify, the green colour was used to mark the same condensed
quotes (first-order concepts) where both had identified the same aggregated theoretical
dimension. The red colour was used to mark first-order concepts that we both had identified as
relevant to our research question but where we had identified the first-order concepts to be a
construct of different themes. The yellow colour was used whenever a unique first-order
concept was found by one author that had not been highlighted by the other author.
After comparisons in the two-content analysis were colour coded, we reduced all the double first-order concepts that we both had analysed as a construct of the same theoretical theme (green concepts) to ensure that the data set was not falsely doubled in the number of quotes.
All first-order concepts were thereby also sorted by its aggregated dimension. The quotes we interpreted differently (red concepts) we discussed until we reached an agreement of which theoretical dimension it belonged to. However, a few first-order concepts did we not find an agreement for. These first-order concepts were collected twice to the reduced data set. This can be seen as facilitating bias since the same quote is interpreted as two quotes but since the amount of these quotes was such a small percentage of the total quotes (2.3%) we argue that they will not impact the volume of quotes or misrepresent our findings hence they will nuance the data set by the fact that one first-order concept can be interpreted as a construct of more than one theoretical dimension. The unique first-order concepts (yellow) that were identified by only one of the authors was read through by the other author and only first-order codes that was interpreted by the other author as relevant to our research question was collected to the final reduced data set. By doing these content analyses individually (Graneheim & Lundman, 2004), followed by a merged and reduced first- and second-order coding (Gioia et al., 2013) together, we mitigated the risk to miss relevant quotes (first-order concepts) since both analysed the material.
When the data set was reduced, and first-order concepts were sorted by its analysed aggregated dimension, we started the second-order coding process following the methodology by Gioia et al. (2013). The constructs of every aggregated dimension were analysed and identified to explain how these aggregated dimensions were constructed by the phenomenon in the context of the case company.
The second step following Mile and Huberman’s (1984) three elements for the process of
analysing qualitative data (data reduction, data display and conclusion-drawing of data) was to
put this the coding scheme made in accordance with Gioia et al. (2013) on display before
starting to draw patterns and conclusions, see figure 2. We also chose to display how the
emerging second-order subthemes were distributed among the dataset to enrich the analysis,
see table 2. The last step when analysing our data following Miles and Huberman (1984) was
conclusion-drawing of the data and emerged dimensions, its constructs and how these
aggregated dimensions were interpreted to impact each other. In figure 2, one can also see that
the three sub-themes do not belong to an aggregated dimension. These themes were not found
to have enough interconnectedness between either themselves as sub-themes or as a substantiated construct to any of the existed dimensions. However, these three emerging was found to be influencing the individual adaptivity to task-oriented changes and therefore are presented in the empirical section with the following analysis.
Figure 2. Data structure: of coded first-order concepts and emerging second-order subthemes and aggregated dimensions.
4. Empirical findings
In this chapter, empirical findings from interviews will be presented according to the dimensions that emerged during the content analysis and coding process. The dimensions are Commitment to change, Competence, Relationships and Psychological conditions together with the additional emerging constructs: Reflection, Time & Workload and Change characteristics, see figure 2. The aggregated dimensions describe the phenomenon of employees’ perceived adaptability in a fast-changing environment. The underlying dynamics of perceived adaptability and its constructs were differently distributed to be perceived as an influence by the respondents, see table 2.
Table 2. Distribution of Subthemes
